Prehistory of Europe III (Eneolithic, Early and Old Bronze Age)

compulsory

ARCHAEOLOGY, specialization Prehistoric and Medieval Archaeology

1st cycle

The course aims at presentation the problems of the Eneolithic, Early and Old Bronze Age with the special emphasis on the characteristics of these periods on the territory of Near East and Europe.

Year 2

Lectures: context of the Middle East centres of the Eneolithic Proto-civilisation; criteria of identification of the Eneolithic Proto-civilisation; Eneolithic of the Balkans; range of genetic autonomous; Eneolithic of the Cucuteni-Trypolje; Eneolithic of the Carpathian Basin; eneolithisation of the Lowlands of Central and Western Europe; Eneolithic of the steep; steep’s conception of the PIE spatial roots; alternativ of the Atlantic ‘megalithic civilisation’?; Baden – Vučedol – „Kuro-Araks” (Aegean/Asian inspirations); conception of the Proto-Bronze cultures; Danubian Early Bronze Age civilisation; northern Pontic Early Bronze Age civilisation.

Classes: conventional and essential periodisation of the Eneolithic and Early/Older Bronze Ages; origins, spatial range, chronology, stage of the development of the main cultural units in the Eneolithic and Early/Older Bronze Ages in Central and Eastern Europe; characterictic of above mentioned cultural units in terms of settlement, husbandary, contacts, social structure and ritual life.

Seminars: students should prepare their own reports together with presentations on a chosen topic concerning concrete, key and the most spectacular problems of the settlement, husbundary, funeral rite, social life, and religious and ideological values in the Eneolithic and Early/Older Bronze Ages (e.g. Iceman and his milieu; cemetery in Varna – the possibilities of interpretation; Nebra disc – authentic or imitation? etc.). The list of the questions is changed each year. They create the starting point to the further discussion of all participants.

Blajer W., Skarby przedmiotów metalowych z epoki brązu i wczesnej epoki żelaza na ziemiach polskich, Kraków 2001. Czebreszuk J., Schyłek neolitu i początki epoki brązu w strefie południowo-zachodniobałtyckiej, Poznań 2001.

Dąbrowski J., Ältere Bronzezeit in Polen, Warszawa 2004. Harding A.F., European Societies in the Bronze Age, Cambridge 2000.

Kadrow S., U progu nowej epoki. Gospodarka i społeczeństwo wczesnego okresu epoki brązu w Europie Środkowej, Kraków 2001.

Kozłowski J.K. (red.) Encyklopedia historyczna świata, tom I. Prehistoria, Kraków 1999.

Kristiansen K., Europe Before History, Cambridge 1998.

Kristiansen K., Larsson T.B., The rise of Bronze Age society. Travels, transmissions and transformations, Cambridge 2005. Kruk J., S. Milisauskas, Rozkwit i upadek społeczeństw rolniczych neolitu, Kraków 1999.

Makarowicz P., Trzciniecki krąg kulturowy – wspólnota pogranicza Wschodu i Zachodu Europy, Poznań 2010.

Whittle A., Europe in the Neolithic, Cambridge 1996.

Włodarczak P., Kultura ceramiki sznurowej na Wyżynie Małopolskiej, Kraków 2006.

Student:

1) gains the basic knowledge of the problems of European prehistory in the period 5300-1500/1400 BC,

2) gains the understanding of the peculiar character of social and cultural processes in the Eneolithic and the Early/Older Bronze Ages, and the mechanizms of the cultural changes in these epochs,

3) gains the skills necessary to suitable interpretation of the data, which create the foundation of the above mentioned processes.

Active class participation, partial tests, final test, final oral exam.